


doesn't matter, i'm sold

by inconocible



Category: Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: F/M, Found Family, Gen, Post-Episode: s02e04 Relics of the Old Republic, Rex ships it, Soft Family Feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-11
Updated: 2018-08-11
Packaged: 2019-06-25 18:02:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15646047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inconocible/pseuds/inconocible
Summary: Rex tilts his head at him curiously, chewing on that statement in his mind. Only every so often. “So, uh, if you don’t mind my asking -- if this is your room -- where do you sleep?”or: Rex figures out Kanan and Hera's relationship.





	doesn't matter, i'm sold

**Author's Note:**

> ain't nothin' like her, nah, nah, nah  
> can't live without her, nah, nah, nah  
> my girl is money, money, dollar, dollar bill  
> [dollar, dollar bill ya'll](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcDk5cdxEWE)

“Really,” Hera’s saying, “it’s no trouble at all. We’ve got a spare bunk in Kanan’s room.”

“All right, then,” Rex says. “It’s an honor to request permission to join your crew, Captain.”

Hera smiles. “An honor to grant it, _Captain_ ,” she replies, and Rex laughs, missing -- or perhaps just choosing to ignore -- Kanan, standing behind Hera, scowling wholeheartedly, his arms crossed over his chest.

Choosing to ignore, for sure. Rex could never miss someone like Kanan. But this is what Rex knows, or guesses, at least: He’s not sure of exactly how old Kanan is, but he can tell that he’s certainly not as old as Ahsoka, not nearly as _experienced._ Rex has heard Kanan mention his master, so he supposes Kanan was a padawan apprentice to a Jedi general for at least some measurable amount of time, but he had to have been young when the order came down, when everything went to hell. Rex can only imagine what Kanan saw out there, in the field at the end of the war, at such a young age -- hell, he doesn’t even really need to imagine. He can make an excellent informed guess.

“Well, Spectre 1?” Hera’s asking Kanan. “Why don’t you go show our guest to his quarters?” and there’s something there between them, in the way Hera’s smiling and the way Kanan’s still frowning but angling his body in toward her, that makes Rex pause, wonder.

“Sure thing, Spectre 2,” Kanan says, barbs of sarcasm in his tone, and he turns to glare at Rex. “Come on,” he says, turning to head down the hall, and Rex, ever dutiful, follows.

Rex doesn’t have much stuff, left Seelos with his sniper rifle and the armor on his back. Ahsoka and Sato and their crew are a good lot, and they’ve outfitted him with some basics -- few changes of clothes, a new sidearm blaster, a modern datapad -- but it all fits easily in a small knapsack, which he holds over one shoulder, shifting his grip on it a little as Kanan comes to a stop in front of one of the rooms. The door glides open, and Kanan steps in, Rex right behind him.

“Make yourself at home,” Kanan says, turning, opening his arms and gesturing at the bunk bed on one side of the room.

“Thanks,” Rex says, and he looks around the room for a moment. “Ah, which bunk did you say is the open one?” he asks, because he genuinely can’t tell from his quick glance. Both the top and bottom are made neatly and cleanly; neither look recently slept in. Honestly, the room barely looks inhabited at all, no clothes or personal effects that Rex can spot, just storage crates stacked up on the other side of the room, little scraps of tech lying out all over the workbench in the corner. Rex knows about the austerity and minimalism of the Jedi -- he _did_ live with several of them in close quarters for years -- but this seems beyond even General Kenobi’s famous tidiness, and it seems especially out of sync with the lived-in, homey feeling that pervades the rest of the _Ghost._

Kanan shrugs. “Either one,” he says. “I mean, the bottom one’s kind of mine, but only every so often. Do whatever’s more comfortable for you.”

Rex tilts his head at him curiously, chewing on that statement in his mind. _Only every so often._ “So, uh, if you don’t mind my asking -- if this is your room -- where do _you_ sleep?”

Kanan shifts his weight like he’s suddenly uncomfortable, runs one hand over his hair, props it on his hip, his eyes narrowing defensively. “With Hera,” he says simply, his face shuttered, not giving anything else away, and he turns on his heel and exits the room.

Interesting, Rex muses as he sets his knapsack down on the top bunk. Interesting, interesting.

*

It only takes Rex about a day on board to really figure it out: The gentle glances, little touches, inside jokes, all give them away. Not to mention the soft, muted sound of two hushed voices, late into the night cycle, drifting from the fresher, muffled by the sound of the sonic shower.

But it takes him a full week to bring it up, to broach it with Kanan. He’s been wanting to ask, been curious, but that’s how he’s been feeling about everything since leaving Seelos, thrilled by everything new and different, from the armor on the Imperial walkers to Sabine’s paint gun, and it’s been a lot for an old soldier to take in, so he’s let this particular curiosity rest, wait a little.

He finally finds the moment to ask when he comes across Kanan, alone in a rare, quiet moment, sitting at the dejarik table with his brow furrowed in concentration, his blaster in pieces on the table in front of him, carefully cleaning it.

“May I?” Rex asks, sliding into the booth, unholstering his own blaster, and Kanan cuts his eyes over at Rex, narrowing them briefly in thought before nodding sharply at him, turning his attention back to his work.

Rex starts taking his own blaster apart. Kanan wordlessly passes him a spare cleaning cloth, and Rex dips the end in the small jar of gun oil, settles into the familiar motions of stripping and cleaning.

Memories of the General drift fondly to him as he works, as he watches Kanan work, out of the corner of his eye. General Skywalker was never able to be still, calm -- how many times had Rex heard General Kenobi complain about that -- and he always seemed to find his meditation, his mental stillness, not in the Jedi-typical act of physical stillness, but in movement, taking things apart and putting them back together. Rex thinks about all the deep, slow conversations he’d had with Anakin, so many years ago, during times just like this, sitting with him, their hands moving, their minds at rest, and he decides that maybe now is the perfect time to ask.

“So,” he starts, measured, quiet. Kanan startles the slightest bit when Rex speaks, but he doesn’t look up from his work, and that’s good, Rex decides. “You and Hera -- I take it you’ve been together a while?”

Kanan glances over at him, purses his lips, and Rex can tell Kanan’s thinking about not answering him. But Kanan looks back down at what he’s doing, and he sighs softly. “Yeah,” Kanan says. “Just about six years now.”

“How’d you meet?” Rex asks.

Kanan smiles, something soft and small, wistful, almost, and it takes Rex by surprise; he’d expected Kanan to bristle, to withdraw. Instead, he just says, “You should ask Hera to tell that story. She tells it a lot better than I do.”

“Oh, come on,” Rex says, and Kanan laughs a little, shakes his head.

“I don’t know,” Kanan says. “I was.” He glances back over at Rex, looks away quickly, almost as though he’s making sure Rex isn’t watching him. “I was drifting for a long time, after the war,” he starts. “And, uh, somehow I drifted right into the middle of one of Hera’s jobs.” Kanan looks over at him, starting to talk with his hands a bit, pointing with his cleaning cloth to make his next point. “Now, when she tells this story, she’ll tell you she kept me around mostly because I saved her life, and because I was handy with a blaster and in the kitchen. And, okay, maybe also for my good looks.”

Rex laughs out loud at this, a brief, “ha!” and Kanan shakes his head again, smiles briefly, but his face turns serious.

“Really,” he says, looking back down at the table, “I might have saved her life, but. She’s actually the one who saved me.”

Rex makes a small sound in the back of his throat, a hum of listening. He lets the silence spool out between them for a few moments, scrubbing at a stubborn spot of grease. “From what?” he finally asks.

Kanan sits up straighter, lays down the piece he’d been working on cleaning, looks at Rex for a long, still moment. “From myself,” he says, quiet, almost rough around the edges of his voice, and he cuts his eyes back down to the table, picks up another piece of his blaster, focuses back in on the task at hand.

Rex doesn’t know how to respond to that, thinks both that he understands perfectly and that he’ll never be able to fully understand, so he lets it be, lets silence stretch comfortably around them again.

There’s still one thing, though, one thought that won’t quiet down, keeps bothering him, memories of his General, and all his mess of secrets, weighing heavy on Rex’s mind.

They’re both done cleaning their weapons now, carefully putting everything back together, and Rex sighs softly, figuring he should just say it, because this ship is normally never this quiet -- he might not get another opportunity like this for some time.

“I’m -- I’m really glad for you,” Rex says, and Kanan tilts his head in questioning. “That you don’t seem to have to keep it such a secret, like they did back in the old days,” he says.

Kanan looks over at him quizzically. “Keep what a secret?” he asks.

Rex shrugs. “Your marriage.”

Kanan looks suddenly uncomfortable, his mouth quirking to one side, one of his hands sweeping over the top of his hair. “I --” he stutters. “We’re not -- it isn’t --”

Rex frowns. Has he totally misinterpreted everything? “You _are_ married,” he says, not quite a question, and Kanan shrugs.

“Not -- legally,” Kanan says. “Neither of us can exactly afford to be on the Empire’s books,” he adds in a mutter.

“But it’s not a _secret_ ,” Rex counters.

Kanan is getting bristly, stiff, the way Rex had feared he would. “It’s not like we go around _announcing_ it,” Kanan says. “We’re professionals. And the Empire --” He sighs roughly, shakes his head. “It’s better if it’s not -- open. Safer.”

Rex smiles. “But, in the old days, the Jedi weren’t even allowed to --” he starts, and Kanan huffs, cuts him off.

“I _know_ that,” Kanan says sourly. “But this is a different time, and I’m not --”

“You misunderstand,” Rex cuts in, getting frustrated. “I’m not saying --” He huffs out a sigh, too, closes his eyes briefly, trying to reframe. “What I’m saying,” he tries again, opening his eyes, “is that I’m _glad_ that you don’t have keep it a secret. That you’re allowed to have a relationship. That you can just be -- whatever you want.”

Kanan pauses for a beat. “Oh,” he says.

Rex smiles again, thinking intensely of his General, of the senator, of the open secrets every Jedi he ever met carried around with them, weighing them down, cutting into them. “I mean, it’s not like the old Jedi _didn’t_ have partners, relationships, attachments,” Rex says. “But, the way the Order was, they had to hide everything.” He sighs. “They were all so -- so sad, and so secretive,” he says, his thoughts drifting to the vulnerable moments he’d seen Anakin suffer through, the rumors he’d heard about Obi-Wan, everything. “The Jedi were -- they were good leaders, and compassionate people, and yet they lived with so many lies, so much sadness, for no good reason.”

“Yeah,” Kanan concedes thoughtfully. “From what I can remember, and from what I’ve learned since, the Order had a lot of problems. The war was just one of them.”

“You see?” Rex asks, and he leans closer to Kanan, lays his hand on Kanan’s shoulder. “ _You’re_ the one who gets to decide what’s secret. And you seem -- you seem happy,” he finishes in a small voice, remembering, remembering how completely and utterly miserable Anakin had seemed, late in the war. “Not everyone was able to have that,” he says. “And -- I’m glad that you do.”

Kanan nods. “Uh, thanks,” he says.

*

That night is Kanan’s turn to cook -- though Rex has observed that almost every night is either Kanan’s turn, or Zeb’s -- and Ezra is perched on the kitchen counter, chatting with Kanan about that afternoon’s training session while Kanan stir-fries some kind of meat. The rest of the crew hasn’t shown up yet; only Rex sits in the galley with them, mostly soaking up this atmosphere of togetherness that still feels new and shiny and yet so familiar to him, feels almost like being back with his brothers and his generals again, after passing so many years with only Gregor and Wolffe and an unending expanse of desert.

Fifteen or twenty minutes pass in friendly conversation, and the meat is almost done, and Ezra pops the lid off of the rice cooker, scoops cooked rice into six bowls. Ezra starts setting the bowls of rice on the dejarik table, and Kanan is dishing the meat from the pan into a serving vessel, and Ezra wanders to the edge of the hall, hollers, “Dinner!” at the top of his lungs.

Zeb and Sabine tumble into the galley, shoving and laughing and jostling between themselves and Ezra, and Kanan rolls his eyes at their antics, gripes at them to settle down, but Rex doesn’t miss the fond smile that Kanan wears when they’re not looking.

The kids are all squeezed in around the table when Sabine looks up. “Hey, where’s Hera?” she asks, and, without being asked, as though this is just a commonplace thing to do, Ezra and Zeb both yell, in tandem, “Hera! Dinner!” They laugh, elbowing at one another, while Kanan and Sabine frown at them.

“Geeze guys, why don’t you call the whole _spaceport_ to dinner while you’re at it?” Sabine asks, rolling her eyes.

“Hey!” Ezra starts.

“Are you guys arguing at the dinner table?” Hera’s voice drifts down the hall, and Kanan smiles, soft, a little smug.

“No,” Ezra, Sabine and Zeb all say in unison, and Chopper rolls into the room, followed closely by Hera.

Chopper rolls right up the table and whacks Ezra on the knee -- “Ow!” Ezra exclaims -- and is saying something that sounds pretty rude, is laughing at them, and the three of them start griping at him -- “Oh, you’re one to talk, you miserable bucket of bolts,” Zeb growls -- completely ignoring Kanan and Hera for the moment.

Rex rolls his eyes at the kids, but he glances up, and over, and he smiles, then, a _real_ smile, a true happiness coursing through him at what he sees.

Hera has backed Kanan up against the counter next to the stove, one of her slim hands on the counter next to his hip, one of his hands on her waist, and she’s saying something, so quiet Rex can’t make anything out but the lilt of her voice. Kanan’s got his head bent down, listening to her, his whole body open to her like a flower to the sun. Kanan smiles at whatever Hera’s saying, and she lifts up onto her toes, swiftly kisses him on the mouth, even as she reaches behind him for the food, all in one fluid, practiced movement. Hera picks up the bowl of meat, brings it over to the table, and sits down, Kanan following her across the room, his smile lingering, his eyes watching Hera’s body appreciatively.

Rex’s and Kanan’s eyes meet across the table, then, over the top of Hera’s head, and Rex can’t wipe the dumb grin off his face, can’t tamp down the small strain of regret that rises up inside him alongside his happiness. How he wishes his General could have had this, the freedom to kiss his own wife if he wanted, the easiness of it.

Kanan rolls his eyes at Rex, shakes his head. “You big sap,” he mutters, but he keeps smiling anyway, and that’s when Rex decides, for certain, that, no matter how difficult it might be sometimes, he and Kanan are going to be friends.

**Author's Note:**

> hey hi hello, so i'm finally rewatching rebels to try to kickstart my creative brain again, and it's working (:  
> i'm just barely into season 2 in my rewatch and i just had to stop and write this, and it turned out so long that i decided it belonged here instead of just on tumblr. rex joins up with the crew for awhile after relics of the old republic, and i just kept thinking -- how did that conversation go?
> 
> follow along on [tumblr](https://inconocible.tumblr.com/) if you want to see what i've been writing recently, my thoughts and ficlets and drabbles and prompts as i rewatch!  
> (and hopefully eventually you can follow along as i finish my kanera longfic i've been working on for months -- and write my minibang story that's coming up for october, lol)


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